CBS1702 - The St. James Way in Spain- and all the Tapas, Peaks and Turns we can find there
After these two weeks of the great time we spent together it is hard to believe that today should be the last riding day! Slamanca was our last station on our round trip of the northern half of the Iberian Peninsula. And now we are headed back to Alcalá de Henares. But there is still enough to see along our way as well as plenty of good riding.
Beautiful weather condidtions --- sunshine and 24º C are promisning a great riding day. Today we will start in Spain and we will ride quite a while through the northern part of Portugal through a high Plateau until we receive in Braganca where we will visit the Zitadella. After Lunch there we are then steering our bikes to Salamanca to be able to see the wonderful marketplace and Cathedreal there. Riding in Portugal with no traffic at all :-) Paradise Lunch Stop in Braganca Salamanca
We made it into Santiago de Compostela yesterday and spent a relaxed ride out to the Cape Finesterre, the inofficial goal of the pilgrims. According to ancient customs, some of the pilgrims burn their shoes here to officially put an end to their pilgrimage. Today, other than the smoking shoe soles from the long walk, there was not much shoe burning going on. But still quite a number of pilgrims at the place. The evening took us out into old town Santiago de Compostela for some tapas
Weather forecast was not that`promising today however we were lucky and had only in the mornng some slight rain,anyway the landscape was showing itself from its beautiful roough side as you seen :-) Coffestop somewhere in the countryside.. where we met this little friend.... :-)
There are countless back roads to choose from here in Northern Spain, why would you want to stay on main roads ;) So our riding day today promises to be another nice, quiet, exciting, mind-blowing, one. All of the above and even more
On our journey to Villafranca del Bierzo, the riders went back into the mountains to chase the curvy roads there. While they were doing so, Daisy and Angela continued their way on the Camino ;) Daisy was able to collect a couple of more stamps into her little pilgrimage book, and we got the chance to visit Gaudi's modern church next to the cathedral in Astorga. At the end of the day, the small chapel of Santiago in Villafranca del Bierzo was worth stopping by to get another stamp
Restday Pamplona means that we will stay 2 nights in this beautiful city, and of course we do as well a nice ride which will bring us today to the Atlantic coast.... and to San Sebastian. The wether forecast is perfect......
Another new area on this globe is waiting to be explored by an international group of riders. This time we are actually not in one of the far-away-destination with a new tour - at least from an European point of view ;) I am on my way down to Spain again with the truck and the trailer, transporting the bikes to Alcalá de Henares near Madrid. From Alcaná we will start our new tour "The St. James Way - Tapas, Peaks and Turns". It is always great to be traveling this direction, especially at this time of the year. You can almost bet on the warm and sunny weather that is waiting down there for you. Even though the north-east part of Spain is more likely to have some rain in the other seasons, Edelweiss has chosen to run this tour in the summer time, to make us enjoy the the good times ;) After an uneventful, almost 2000 kilometre's drive from the headquarters in Austria to Alcalá de Henares, I already found the first customers at our tour start hotel. And also Pierre, my tour guide colleague, has arrived. While Tina and Neil from Australia went to explore Madrid, Pierre and myself accompanied Charlie from the USA on the city walk through Alcalá de Henares.